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| Author |
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| 25 new of 198 responses total. |
keesan
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response 25 of 198:
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Oct 2 13:31 UTC 2000 |
If we get both pentium boards working we can use both large drives in pentiums
that can handle them, but if not, we may appreciate your offer. More later.
We also have three ATTs with updated BIOS which we could check out, in case
they handle large drives.
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ball
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response 26 of 198:
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Oct 2 14:43 UTC 2000 |
There's quite a bit to answer here, and I'm short of time so
I'll write more later. Sindi some machines have firmware
that will let you 'tweak' DRAM timing and some have the
option of automatically configuring that for you. If
possible let the firmware determing the DRAM timings. How
fast are the SIMMs that you have in there? You say you've
tested the SIMMs okay in another machine?
Hope you had a good birthday Klaus, 73!
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keesan
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response 27 of 198:
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Oct 2 15:08 UTC 2000 |
The same SIMMs work perfectly on an identical motherboard, in both banks.
So do a second set of SIMMs. They are 60 ns (the board calls for 70ns or
faster). It looks to me as if whoever donated these two boards used the one
we are having problems with, as the booklet for it has switch settings marked
for the 100MHz cpu, then replaced it with the second board, which we got with
the 100MHz cpu in it (the first board came with no cpu) and never got around
to rebuilding the computer. Anyone have any idea what a used pentium
motherboard with 50 and 60 clock speeds, that can run at 3/2 or 2x, would be
worth nowadays? I have seen pentiums for sale for $50, without monitor or
keyboard or mouse.
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mdw
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response 28 of 198:
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Oct 2 17:21 UTC 2000 |
The simplest answer is to go through and write down *all* of the CMOS
settings for *both* machines, and compare & contrast them. You might
include the bios version information at the same time when doing this.
You actually have to have a motherboard that has glue logic with
"tweakable" DRAM settings, as well as a bios that supports changing
those settings - it's not just a firmware feature, but a hardware
feature as well.
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keesan
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response 29 of 198:
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Oct 2 18:04 UTC 2000 |
Jim compared all the CMOS settings and they were the same. I will tell him
to compare BIOS. THe two boards came with matching booklets so were probably
the same BIOS.
Progress report. Jim was able to eliminate the XMS memory error message in
one of two ways: disable system cache (it runs at 33MHz according to syschk,
hardly what you want of a Pentium) or turn of 'turbo mode' (runs equally
slowly). He has concluded that the board is not of value unless someone is
interested in a 33MHz board with three PCI slots - any takers?
He tested cpus in the working board and discovered that although the booklet
says it runs at 50 or 60MHz (set the switches) times 3/2 or 2 (75, 90, 100,
120) it will run with a 133MHz intel cpu at 133MHz. THe board is full of
chips labelled 66. It ran at 100MHz with a 100MHz cpu.
There is an AMD K5 PR133 cpu that would not work at all in this board. Does
this mean the cpu is bad, or does it only work in certain boards? He tried
various settings and it does not work at all.
We have that Pentium 60MHz board and cpu from a friend to check next. The
friend said it worked until he changed the battery. May need to be
reconfigured, but would anything else have gone wrong? More detail later.
The other current experiment is to attempt to install a VLB SCSI controller
and a full-height SCSI drive (.75G) into the would-be server for Andy's
project, so that he can put a SCSI tape backup into that server, obviating
the need for a separate computer for the tape backup. The SCSI controller
claims to support up to 7 hard drives, also an assortment of things like
CD-ROM drives and printers. Are SCSI things still being made? What is their
advantage?
The server in question is a huge tower with enough empty bays that we can put
the drive into two adjacent bays, letting us use the 600M drive that is in
it for the other server that Andy needs (assuming we can get a motherboard
working that will support this, maybe with Klaus's software.) What is the
chance that a post-1994 upgraded BIOS in one of our ATTs might support it?
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keesan
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response 30 of 198:
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Oct 2 18:18 UTC 2000 |
I found the pentium board from our friend. The battery (Li) is extremely
whiskery. What are the chances that this one will work?
It says it has six SIMM sockets for four memory banks (a typo)? that will hold
1M or large SIMMs. THe other board required 4M or larger.
THere are three jumper settings for 50 MHz (75MHz cpu), 60 MHz (90 MHz cpu)
and 66MHz (100MHz cpu). THe cpu with it is said to be 60 but we now have an
extra 100MHz cpu. The other board let you choose clock speed times 3/2 or
2 (set to 50 it can to 75 or 100) but this does not seem to.
There is a jumper setting for external battery. Our friend said it would not
work after he added an external battery. He forgot to mention that he did
not remove the internal battery. THere is a velcro battery in the box
labelled bought 9/99. We should know more tonight.
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mdw
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response 31 of 198:
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Oct 2 20:25 UTC 2000 |
Different CPU's run at different voltage levels. The original pentium
was a 5V only part, newer K6 chips &etc run at a variety of voltages,
typically around 3.3V. Exceeding the voltage is probably a good way to
fry the chip. The newer chips all use "clock doubling" technology,
first pioneered in the later 486's. The CPU's internal clock runs at
some multiple (2x, 3x 2.5x, etc.) of the input clock, which then
actually controls the bus speed.
SCSI is usually faster but more expensive. For used equipment,
translate "more expensive" into "less common". SCSI is typically used
on most older SUN's, macintosh, and was and still is ubiquitous for
server machines. There have been several different standards. SCSI-2
supported up to 7 peripherals (could be disk, tape, cd's, or other
things), and used a 50 pin cable. For a while, many scanners were
distributed that supported SCSI-2, and came with a relatively dumb
SCSI-2 card intended just for the scanner. There was also a
differential form of SCSI-2 that supported greater distances. Several
modern variants of SCSI exist, which feature higher transfer speeds and
support more peripherals (up to 15) on one bus. If it's a windows
machine, SCSI is probably not much advantage and may even be harmful.
For Linux or Novell Netware use, SCSI has a distinct performance edge,
and is well worth seeking out. For what it's worth, SCSI is a
distinctly older standard than IDE, has been around since the early
80's.
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jazz
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response 32 of 198:
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Oct 2 20:29 UTC 2000 |
Differential SCSI was affectionately known as "plug & fry" by a
less-than-technically-gifted friend of mine.
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keesan
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response 33 of 198:
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Oct 2 21:09 UTC 2000 |
This is SCSI 2, 50 pin, for a LINUX server which will have a tape backup, and
could also support our largest hard drive, which is SCSI (don't know yet if
it is working SCSI, or if the controller is working SCSI). It has a
Centronics output and presumably you can also plug the hard drive into it on
the inside of the computer, along with five other things.
We have a UNISYS computer with 160M SCSI drive and a shorter sort of port.
Bill was unable to get it working with a larger SCSI drive or it may have been
with a second drive. Why might this not have worked? Should we try again,
in order to have a second SCSI LINUX server available? Jim has two 40M SCSI
drives. Is there some way to add an IDE drive to that computer (some card
you can plug in to control a non-SCSI hard drive?)
The whiskered-battery pentium board is Socket 5, 3.3V, like the other two,
it just does not seem to have a switch or jumper setting for 2x the clock
speed, only 3/2x. It is 1994, should we look for a 2x setting (on the off
chance that the board can be made to work again)?
How many Sockets for cpus were made and what sort and why? What is an
Overdrive socket? Can you put a 486DX4 cpu into an ordinary 486 socket
without damaging either of them (100MHz)?
What sorts of things might one want to plug into a LINUX server for a network
of four other computers all sharing a DSL line, other than the tape backup.
We have one very large tower with lots of bays (the SCSI is full-height and
would occupy two of the bays). Does the server itself also get a network
card?
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ball
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response 34 of 198:
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Oct 2 22:12 UTC 2000 |
Re #28: Good point Marcus, I forgot to mention that.
Re #29: The AMD K5 PR133 was a 100MHz chip (66 x 1.5)
Looks like Marcus has already answered the SCSI question.
Re #33: More likely NetBSD than Linux.
There's any number of things Bill could have done to prevent
the replacement drive working (incorrect termination springs
to mind). It's also possible there was a difference of opinion
between the drive and the host adaptor, or the machine's
firmware.
I've already posted you a summary of what 486 and Pentium
sockets were made. As I said previously, most 486 DX4 100MHz
chips were 3.3V and will die a painful and unnecesary death
if put in a 5V socket.
Yes, the server would need a network interface card.
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keesan
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response 35 of 198:
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Oct 3 00:51 UTC 2000 |
Does that mean 5 network cards at one site and a few more at the other?
What sort of differences of opinion might that be?
Jim just got our friend's pentium board working (after he soldered it) by
reading the instruction book as a last resort. He had the two SIMMS in the
first instead of the last two sockets. So we have a 100MHz pentium in the
making!!!!!! He also fixed a broken laptop computer by soldering the ribbon
cable where it had broken. (This one even has a hard drive).
I think it would have to be one large hard drive in teh UNISYS rather than
two small ones if you also want a free bay for a tape drive. More later.
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ball
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response 36 of 198:
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Oct 3 02:11 UTC 2000 |
Differences of opinion like the drive says "Hi there, I'm a
SCSI fixed disk with 976562 blocks of 512 bytes" and the
controller says "Was sagt sie? Ich nicht verstehen!".
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keesan
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response 37 of 198:
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Oct 3 13:27 UTC 2000 |
The controller should learn better German grammar if it wants to be understood
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keesan
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response 38 of 198:
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Oct 3 15:40 UTC 2000 |
We have lots of 320M SCSI drives from Tim (mostly in Model 80s) and hope to
be able to put two into each UNISYS some time soon.
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keesan
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response 39 of 198:
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Oct 5 15:32 UTC 2000 |
We tested out one more 486, this one with 8 30 pin slots, and it runs a 609M
hard drive okay.
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keesan
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response 40 of 198:
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Oct 5 20:49 UTC 2000 |
We just tested out 8 486 boards. Two of them could not be made to display,
no matter how we set the jumpers for various combinations of SIMMS.
One would not run at DX but runs at SX. One claimed to be DX266MHz but the
throughput was two thirds that. One had a combination of 30 pin and 72 pin
SIMM sockets and you could put RAM in both and use it all, another would only
let us put RAM in the 30 pin (could not figure out the jumpers? - maybe you
can use only one or the other but not both?). I wish people would donate
instructions along with their hardware (and notes as to what was not working).
We are replacing the board that had 4 30-pin and 2 72-pin sockets, with a
board
that has 8 30-pin sockets, so we can get 8M RAM without havnig to use our
scarce 4M SIMMs. I wonder how much money the manufacturers saved by having
4 instead of 8 30 pin SIMM sockets along with their 2 72-pin sockets.
Some boards are very clearly labelled as to jumpers, some are hopeless.
One referred on one part of the board to bank A sockets 0 1 2 3 and bank B
and bank C, but the banks were labelled not B and C but C 1 and C 2.
Andy is hoping to use the working spare 486 boards to upgrade from 386s when
he runs across them, so we have three for him now. (Only one day's work).
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keesan
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response 41 of 198:
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Oct 6 17:42 UTC 2000 |
Someone in California is going to put us in touch with an organization that
ships container-loads of 486 and pentium computers (donations are up to
200MHz) to Cuba for use by doctors to access databases. They are shipped via
Montreal (from CA to Canada, oddly enough). They will pay for the shipping
of 486 computers that have been checked out working. More later.
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twinkie
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response 42 of 198:
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Oct 6 19:58 UTC 2000 |
(It's probably exponentially cheaper to send them to Cuba via Canada. Unlike
the US, Canadian airlines fly to Cuba frequently. In fact, there are often
advertisements to fly to Cuba for a vacation, on Canadian travel agents'
windows)
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mdw
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response 43 of 198:
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Oct 6 20:05 UTC 2000 |
Actually, it's probably nearly impossible to ship *anything* from the US
to Cuba without hassle. Thank the cold war for this.
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mcnally
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response 44 of 198:
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Oct 6 20:58 UTC 2000 |
Yeah, look at how much trouble it was sending a single six-year-old back!
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ball
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response 45 of 198:
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Oct 7 04:04 UTC 2000 |
Re #41: Sounds like a really worthwhile project, will you be
able to put some of your 486 machines their way?
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keesan
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response 46 of 198:
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Oct 7 16:41 UTC 2000 |
The translation agency owner who suggested this will put us in touch with
CubaMed. Why is a 486 needed to access a database?
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lionfish
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response 47 of 198:
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Oct 7 22:15 UTC 2000 |
Hi all! - this is a very cool bb, I have a couple of questions, I hope u don't
mind me asking (i'm kinda a newbie):
Question 1: Where do u get all these old computers from? - i need a supply
of old 486s :) - should i email local companies??
Question 2: What version of LINUX would u recomend for someone who's never
used linux before and wants to install it on a 486 66, 16Mb of RAM and a
partitoned HD (300Mb for LINUX stuff, 200Mb for windows)?
ty for the help!!! :)
note: I'm from the UK, so the sources of computers might not be the same.
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gull
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response 48 of 198:
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Oct 8 19:52 UTC 2000 |
I'd probably suggest Slackware. It's fairly easy to install, but doesn't
require as much of the machine it's on as some of the more elaborite
releases. Just about any release *should* work if you're careful what you
install, though.
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keesan
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response 49 of 198:
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Oct 9 01:26 UTC 2000 |
Jim has Slackware and is hoping to learn to use it. He also has the book and
can try to look up answers to questions.
We got these computers because they were all donated to a place where we
volunteered, that sells donated used things. Nobody is buying 486s any more
so they were not selling. What do you want to do with a bunch of them?
Would 486 boards be helpful instead?
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